Mark Shuttleworth Goes Blogging On Ubuntu Defense

[GreatEmerald]

I think Zanny is mixing up with "/sbin".

In openSUSE's default, "/sbin" isn't in PATH (because it supposed to contain tools used by the super user), even if some of the tools can be meaning fully ran by a non privileged user:
- /sbin/ifconfig, even without root privileges can be used to get information about network devices (although it still requires privileges for *configuring* the devices).

Now I personally think that openSUSE is one of the best "average user" distros around. YaST is a very nice tool for configuring everything. It has nice out-of-the-box support for lots of things, and a nice eco-system of 3rd party repositories (Packman, Suse's own Open Build System, etc.) (And yes, Valve's Steam is already in the 'Game' extra repository, thank to a few guys who helped Valve and Suse get in touch)

Yes, that's true. But if you execute "ifconfig", the command line actually prints this:

Absolute path to 'ifconfig' is '/sbin/ifconfig', so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).

So it's not just "command not found", like some root-only tools on Gentoo and such.

And yeap. I'd say that Mageia is better as a beginner distro, as it does everything in a user-friendly way (auto-detect your graphics card -> present a configuration GUI, where one step is asking whether you'd prefer the proprietary drivers, while briefly summing up its pros and cons in a simple way, and also allowing to switch back by clearing a checkbox later on - just as a single example). But openSUSE is good as a more powerful and universal distribution, as it has a lot more packages, and YaST is more advanced (albeit also more technical than Mageia's control centre).

[Djhg2000]

I think this is what may eventually kill Ubuntu. Moving further away from the other Linux distributions, they receive less upstream development on core components. They're quickly moving from collaborators to competitors.

Ubuntu is far from the cutting edge Debian derivative I liked in 8.04 LTS. Nowadays I use Debian Sid and have more or less alienated Ubuntu as a desktop OS.

[e8hffff]

I've posted on Mark's site but that stupid spam plug-in 'Akismet' blocks my gmail account and there seems no way to remove your email address from their lists. Wordpress application is so lame at times.

[prodigy_]

my comment in the poll during Lucid development[/URL]), I am aware that there was a technical reason. IIRC, it was to avoid putting them near the various applets and messages.

In retrospect it was just one of many preparations for Unity. And that's why they were so adamant about it. The whole buttons-on-the-left issue was important because it clearly denoted the watershed between Ubuntu as a philosophy and Ubuntu as a recognized brand. It was precisely the point where Canonical stopped listening to their userbase and adopted typical corporate "we know what you need better then you" bullshit.

[ворот93]

Canonical is not contributing upstream. They're trying to get support for their project(which BTW undermines the efforts for a new standard display server).

And other projects shouldn't take any patch in. It adds complexity and maintenance. Imagine having to support half a dozen display servers.
Example: If a create a new type of executable incompatible with Linux. Should the Linux kernel just take my patch to support my executable?

If the user share of your executable outnumbers other executables combined then yes, by all means.

[ворот93]

Since I use Ubuntu with mostly the Plasma desktop I would consider myself part of the Ubuntu community. I'm fairly new to linux (less than a year using linux) and I don't know how to code or understand a lot of these techical terms you guys use but I think i have a basic understanding of what Mark is saying. I think he wants to be like Apple, Windows and Android (regarding wealth), feels the goal is achieveable and will say/do anything to justify it and color it as politcally correct (politcally here means as in relation to the other distros).
Oh well. There are other distros, if he makes a bad decision/s then we will abandon his distro right?
Sailfish is targetting Wayland and that is their future linux competition on phones and tablets right?
Valve is going with X and probably open to Wayland and that is their future desktop/gaming platform competition right?
Opensuse is their enterprise competition and they are still same old same old right?
So what are we getting next from Valve? Valve Debian or something like that?

1. Your choice.
2. Too late for that, sorry
3. X, Wayland and Mir but I'd rather say just Mir since they target one platform - Ubuntu. Everything else is just an extra.
4. openSUSE is buggy as hell, no idea about SLE.
5. SteamBox which is Valve Ubuntu most likely.

[ворот93]

Yes, wouldn't it be nice if free software was the norm, not the exception?

But how are we going to get there?
If it is by selling our core values, then is it really worth it?

I don't want Linux with adware, spyware, EULA, DRM, proprietary software, proprietary protocols, binary blobs, bundled software, browser toolbars, software that modify browser start page, backdoors, etc.

Don't forget about transparency.

No, it's not. It's better to stay a community of geeks and programmers and show off l33t openbox setup to our girl- / boyfriends.

[ворот93]

"What I’m really interested in is this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a free and open platform that is THE LEADER across both consumer and enterprise computing."

FLOSS needs THE FUHRER!

Lol

Sad but true. Bazaar (as philosophy) is good at creating flexible software with a lot of cool features, cathedral leads to less bugs and faster development. To put it in simple terms:

Community writes desktop software as it likes
Companies write desktop software so it *works*

Take Jabber+Jingle for example:
You can easily play chess via Jabber (psi-plus)
You can easily join conferences via Jabber
You can even make your own Jabber server
And if you want to call behind NAT – you’re screwed

That’s why millions use Skype.

[Vim_User]

If the user share of your executable outnumbers other executables combined then yes, by all means.

I would like to see a source for those numbers, do you have a link to reliable statistics that show that Ubuntu has more users than the other distros combined?

[ворот93]

I would like to see a source for those numbers, do you have a link to reliable statistics that show that Ubuntu has more users than the other distros combined?

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia...ingSystems.htm

1 place = Android, 13120M hits
2 place = Ubuntu, 1081M hits
3 place = SUSE 18M hits

That is not even funny.

While 'Linux Other' seems suspicious, it could easily constitute older versions of Android or Ubuntu and does not look reliable enough to disprove the argument.